Ca^WiaUc  Principle 


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WLnibtttitp  ot  Jlortf)  Carolina 


From  the  Library  of 
r?eo-  A  .COsbot-ne 

Cf2.52. 


Carbolic  principles 


'And  he  said  unto  me,  Son  of  man,  can  these  bones 
live?" 

—Ezekid  XXXVI1& 


A  SERMON  PREACHED  AT 

ST.  MART'S,  ASHEVILLE,  N.  C. 

ON  THE  SIXTH  SUNDAY  AFTER  TRINITY, 

A.  D.  1915,  BY  THE 

REVEREND  CHARLES  MERCER  HALL,  M.  A. 

RECTOR 


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Catholic  principles 


"And  he  said  unto  me,  Son  of  man,  can  these  bones 
live?" 

—Ezekiel  XXXV  11:3 


A   SERMON   PREACHED   AT 

st.  mary's,  asheville,  n.  C. 

ON  THE   SIXTH   SUNDAY  AFTER  TRINITY, 

A.  D.  1915,  BY  THE 

REVEREND  GHARLES  MERGER  HALL,  M.A., 

RECTOR 


DR.   PUSEY  AND   THE   CATHOLIC   REVIVAL 

"In  the  deep,  calm,  meditative  saintliness  of  the 
soul  of  Edward  Bouverie  Pusey,  Doctor  of  the 
Catholic  Church  and  Confessor,  Almighty  God  set 
the  seal  and  stamp  of  the  purpose  and  sent  also  the 
spirit  and  power  of  the  great  movement,  which, 
issuing  forth  from  that  spring,  has  roused  Chris- 
tendom, revived  the  Church  and  revolutionized 
society." — The  late  William  Croswell  Doane,  Bishop 
of  Albany. 


"Let  us  remember  that  it  is  of  the  essence  of  all 
acceptable  worship  (for  God  will  only  be  worshipped 
in  spirit  and  in  truth)  that  it  should  rightly  express 
the  Catholic  Faith." — Pastoral  Letter  of  the  House 
of  Bishops,  A.D.  1895. 


CD 


Catholic  {principles 

We  have  just  been  celebrating  our  first  birthday 
as  a  Parish.  A  year  ago  last  Sunday  we  made  a 
beginning  as  a  congregation,  in  our  first  Corporate 
Communion.  I  wonder  if  many  thought  of  a  cer- 
tain resemblance  between  the  birth  of  the  Pente- 
costal Church  in  Jerusalem  in  an  upper  room,  and 
that  first  service,  in  the  hired  room  in  the  Manor 
Club  House?  They  were  both  small  beginnings. 
The  grain  of  mustard  seed  became  a  mighty  tree, 
the  leaves  of  which  are  for  the  healing  of  the  na- 
tions. A  year  ago  this  little  parish  had  just  been 
born;  today  it  is  but  a  little  one.  Two  of  our  num- 
ber have  already  gone  to  form  a  St.  Mary's  con- 
gregation in  the  Land  of  Green  Pastures,  and  we 
trust  already  listen  to  the  song  of  Moses  and  the 
Lamb.  Yet  again  today  we  gather  in  this  beautiful 
little  House  of  God  to  give  thanks  for  God's  great 
goodness  to  us,  and  to  offer  up  our  sacrifice  of  praise 
and  thanksgiving.  We  think  how  wonderful  it  has 
all  been;  how  much  has  been  accomplished  already; 
how  much  more  there  is  yet  to  do.  And  we  hear  the 
voice  of  God  speaking  to  us,  saying,  "  Speak  unto 
the  children  of  Israel  that  they  go  forward." 

Happy  indeed  are  you,  great  indeed  is  your 
privilege,  large  your  opportunity.  You  are  living  in 
the  days  of  the  Renaissance  of  our  beloved  Church. 
Let  us  spend  our  time  this  morning  in  retrospect. 

In  Colonial  days  the  Church  in  England  was  in 
a  very  low  spiritual  condition.  In  New  England 
she  had  to  maintain  her  place  against  the  fierce 
prejudices  of  the  Puritans.  She  was  thereby  forced, 
as  we  need  to  be  forced  in  this  Southland,  to  take 
a  fuller  grasp  of  Church  principles  and  Church  life. 
On  the  contrary  in  Virginia,  where  nearly  every- 
body was  " conservative,"  the  Virginians  held  on  to 
the  Church  as  they  had  received  it.  Until  after  the 
Revolution  the  Church  in  the  American  colonies 
was  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Bishop  of  London, 


who  never  visited  them.  The  clergy  of  Connecticut, 
New  Jersey  and  New  York  especially  desired  the 
Episcopate  as  essential  to  the  preservation  of  the 
Church.  But  this  was  not  secured  without  meeting 
violent  opposition  and  attack,  not  only  by  sec- 
tarians, but  even  by  those  in  the  Church  who 
opposed  the  idea  of  Episcopal  rule. 

From  the  days  of  Constantine,  Church  and 
State  had  been  united.  But  the  American  Church 
was  to  be  free,  and  her  Bishops  not  appointed  by 
the  State,  but  elected  by  the  clergy  and  laity  in 
synod  assembled.  We  have  indeed  a  vestige  of  the 
old  way  surviving  in  our  present  provision  for  the 
election  of  Missionary  Bishops  by  the  House  of 
Bishops.  That  is  one  reason  why  we  are  anxious  to 
see  all  our  Missionary  Districts  become  dioceses. 
In  a  diocese,  (a  "Missionary  District"  is  an  ano- 
maly), the  rights  of  Bishop  and  clergy  and  laity  are 
afforded  equal  recognition.  A  Bishop  is  a  con- 
stitutional officer,  not  an  autocrat,  he  is  not  vested 
with  the  authority  of  a  Pope,  and  any  attempt  on 
his  part  to  assume  unconstitutional  prerogatives 
should  be  vigorously  resisted.  The  Standing  Com- 
mittee elected  by  the  convention  or  synod  of  a 
diocese,  forms  the  balance  wheel  of  diocesan  organ- 
ization. In  a  Missionary  District,  as  someone  said 
in  our  recent  Convention,  "the  Bishop  is  an  auto- 
crat." He  can  veto  or  ignore  the  action  of  both  his 
Council  of  Advice  and  Synod,  if  he  so  chooses.  Yet 
few  Bishops  could  have  the  temerity  to  ignore  the 
wishes  of  their  Synod  duly  expressed. 

The  Episcopate  for  America  was  at  length  ob- 
tained by  the  consecration  of  Dr.  Samuel  Seabury, 
by  the  Scottish  Bishops,  on  November  14,  1784,  at 
Aberdeen,  Scotland. 

Our  first  American  Prayer  Book  had  several 
blemishes.  Bishop  Seabury  said  that  he  left  it  to 
men  of  another  generation  who  were  to  come  after 
him,  to  restore  the  losses  in  the  Offices.  Some  of 
these  blemishes  have  been  done  away.  To  Dr. 
Seabury  we  owe  the  liturgical  beauty  of  the  Prayer 


of  Consecration  or  Canon,  in  the  Communion 
Office;  it  will  ever  be  a  monument  to  his  wisdom 
and  piety. 

The  great  Revival  of  the  Nineteenth  Century, 
begun  at  Oxford  in  1833,  when  John  Keble  preached 
his  famous  Assize  Sermon,  began  quite  inde- 
pendently here  in  America.  The  second  Dr.  Samuel 
Seabury,  John  Henry  Hobart,  Milo  Mahan  and 
others  laid  the  foundations  of  the  Oxford  (later 
called  the  Catholic)  Movement,  or  so-called  Re- 
naissance, in  America.  Here,  as  in  England,  that 
Movement  met  with  fierce  opposition.  The  Evan- 
gelical, or  Low  Church  Party,  had  lost  much  of  its 
early  fervor:  (in  1890,  Professor  Cady  of  the  Gen- 
eral Theological  Seminary  told  me  it  was  dead). 
The  theological  system  that  taught  that  grace  was 
given  through  the  sacraments  was  taken  to  be  in 
opposition  to  the  Evangelical  doctrine,  that  man 
was  justified  by  faith,  or  simply  trust,  in  the  merits 
of  Christ.  Perhaps  rightly  understood  these  two 
ideas  were  not  really  contradictory,  but  supple- 
mentary of  each  other.  Christianity  has,  what  we 
call,  its  objective  and  its  subjective  side.  Sacra- 
ments are  means  through  which  Christ  acts  and 
bestows  his  gifts.  Faith  and  repentance  are  the 
subjective  and  necessary  conditions  for  their  profit- 
able reception.  The  controversy  in  England  and 
America,  for  a  time,  waxed  fierce  and  warm.  The 
contest  raged  about  the  doctrine  of  Apostolical 
Succession  and  the  Remission  of  sins  in  Baptism. 
We  have  to  thank  God  that  in  our  American 
Prayer  Book  it  is  declared  that  God  has  "promised 
to  be  with  the  Ministers  of  Apostolic  Succession  to 
the  end  of  the  world."  Study  the  various  parts  of 
your  Prayer  Book.  So,  too,  in  our  Baptismal  Office 
the  Doctrine  of  Baptismal  Regeneration  is  clearly 
affirmed.  The  sixth  chapter  of  St.  John,  fairly 
interpreted,  gives  us  the  Scriptural  authority  for 
the  doctrine  of  the  Real  Presence  of  Christ  in  the 
Holy  Eucharist:  and  the  New  Birth  from  above  was 


ever  associated,  in  Holy  Scripture,  with  the  one  act 
of  water  and  the  Spirit. 

There  was  connected  with  these  teachings  an 
improvement  in  the  arrangement  of  our  churches 
and  some  ceremonial  details,  in  the  way  of  restora- 
tion. As  a  little  boy,  my  first  recollections  of  a 
church  are  of  sitting  at  my  mother's  feet  on  a  com- 
fortable hassock  in  an  old  fashioned  box  pew,  with 
much  higher  sides  than  those  in  old  St.  Michael's, 
Charleston.  In  front  of  me  towered  the  ancient 
"three-decker"  pulpit.  At  the  lowest  desk  sat  the 
clerk,  who  bawled  out  the  responses;  at  the  second 
story  stood  the  Priest,  in  surplice  and  black  stole 
(I  was  told  that  this  was  a  relic  of  the  time  when 
the  English  went  into  mourning  for  the  death  of 
Charles  I!)  A  little  later,  after  retiring  for  a  space 
to  the  Vestry,  the  preacher  emerged  clothed  in  a 
black  Geneva  gown  and  bands,  and  sometimes  wear- 
ing lavendar  or  black  gloves,  ascended  to  the  third 
level  of  the  "three-decker"  to  deliver  his  ponderous 
discourse.  It  is  difficult  to  believe  that  when  this 
order  began  to  change,  it  caused  in  England  what 
were  known  as  the  Surplice  riots,  and  brought 
forth  Episcopal  fulminations.  The  Altar  or  Holy 
Table,  in  many  places,  was  a  four-legged  library 
table,  often  used  as  a  repository  for  nondescript 
articles,  which  stood  immediately  in  front  of  the 
pulpit. 

The  Southern  dioceses,  where  the  Colonial 
Church  had  been  strongest,  suffered  most  severely 
from  the  Revolution.  Their  lands  were  taken 
away,  their  churches  destroyed;  communion  plate 
disappeared,  and  fonts  were  used  for  watering 
troughs.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  the  idea  of  worship 
was  nearly  lost? 

And  in  Massachusetts  strange  things  happened. 
Bishop  Eastburn  declined  to  visit  the  Church  of  the 
Advent  because  there  was  a  cross  on  the  wall  over 
the  altar,  flowers  were  at  times  placed  on  the  altar, 
and   the  prayers   were   said   choir-wise.     On   one 


6 


occasion  when  the  Priest,  Dr.  Edson,  began  to  say 
the  prayers  in  that  position,  in  the  presence  of  the 
Bishop,  that  prelate  actually  rose  from  his  knees, 
and  going  to  him  took  him  by  the  shoulders  and 
forced  him  to  turn  about  with  his  face  to  the  people ! 
Bishop  Mcllvaine  of  Ohio  forbade  any  altar  with  a 
solid  or  closed  front.  Bishop  Whittle  of  Virginia 
would  not  allow  flowers  on  the  Holy  Table;  and 
many  another  Bishop,  by  many  arbitrary  and 
unconstitutional  acts,  made  life  miserable  for  one  or 
more  of  his  clergy.  Indeed  such  inconceivable  nar- 
rowness is  not  yet  entirely  a  memory  of  distant 
days.  But  Bishop  Horatio  Potter  of  New  York 
once  said,  that  one  might  as  well  try  to  sweep  back 
the  ocean  with  a  broom,  as  to  stop  the  advance  of 
the  great  Movement  for  which  St.  Mary's,  its  priest, 
its  vestry,  its  congregation  stands. 

In  1844,  the  General  Convention  was  stirred  up 
to  take  action  and  to  endeavor  to  deal  with  the 
Tractarian  Movement.  But  as  another  Bishop  has 
said,  you  could  as  little  check  its  onward  career  by 
resolution  as  you  could  by  addressing  a  series  of 
them  to  an  advancing  locomotive,  stop  its  progress. 
In  spite  of  the  unfortunate  defection  of  Newman  in 
Europe,  and  of  Bishop  Ives  in  1852,  in  North  Caro- 
lina, the  Movement  kept  on  spreading  like  oil  upon 
the  waters. 

Early  in  the  fifties,  Bishop  Eastburn  of  Massa- 
chusetts, presented  Father  Prescott,  an  assistant  at 
the  Church  of  the  Advent  for  trial.  It  was  proved 
that  Father  Prescott  had  offered  to  hear  confessions 
privately  and  to  give  Absolution,  and  that  in  a  ser- 
mon he  had  spoken  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  as  "the 
Sinless  Mother  of  a  Sinless  Child."  After  some 
years  a  conclusion  was  reached  that  this  phrase  did 
not  necessarily  involve  erroneous  doctrine.  But — 
remember  this  was  over  fifty  years  ago — it  was 
adjudged  that  Father  Prescott  must  agree  that  he 
would  not  preach  Confession,  and  that  until  he  so 
agreed  he  should  be  suspended  from  the  Ministry! 


Today  such  a  finding  would  be  impossible.  The 
trial  instead  of  putting  an  end  to  such  teaching, 
served  like  the  wind  of  God,  to  fan  the  new  impulse 
given  to  Catholic  doctrine  and  principles  into  a 
flame.  Bishop  Whittingham  of  Maryland  invited  V^ 
Father  Prescott  into  his  diocese  and  said  that  what 
a  Bishop  could  do,  a  Bishop  could  undo,  and  he 
released  Father  Prescott  from  any  obligations  to 
obey  the  decision  of  the  Court  in  his  diocese. 

In  England  a  contest  arose  over  the  doctrine  of 
the  Real  Presence.  The  Rev.  W.  J.  E.  Bennett 
taught  that  in  the  Sacrament  there  was  an  actual 
presence  of  the  true  Body  and  Blood  of  the  Lord. 
It  was  there  by  virtue  of  the  consecration,  and 
extended  to  the  communicant,  and  separately  from 
the  act  of  reception.  He  held  that  the  Communion 
Table  was  also  an  Altar  of  Sacrifice,  and  that 
Adoration  was  due  to  our  Lord  in  the  Sacrament, 
on  the  ground  that  under  the  veil  of  bread  and  wine 
our  Lord  was  really  present.  The  English  Privy 
Council  declared  this  not  to  be  contrary  to  the 
Church's  allowed  teaching.  The  sainted  John 
Keble's  book  on  " Eucharistical  Adoration"  is  an 
English  classic. 

The  same  doctrine  was  taught  in  America.  Dr. 
Samuel  F.  Jarvis  of  Connecticut,  in  a  note  to  a 
famous  sermon  preached  in  1836,  before  the  Board 
of  Missions,  used  these  words:  "We  have  no  right 
to  banish  from  our  Communion  those  whose  notions 
of  the  real  presence  of  Christ  in  the  Sacrament  rise 
to  a  mysterious  change  by  which  the  very  elements 
themselves,  though  they  retain  their  original  prop- 
erties, are  corporeally  united  with,  or  transformed 
into,  Christ." 

Bishop  Whittingham  taught  that  "one  ought  to)     \/ 

/     go  to  the  death  for  the  doctrine  of  the  Real  Presy     VN' 

^    ence." 

J  Later  a  controversy  arose  between  Dr.  Craik  of  \    i 

f      Kentucky  and  Dr.  James  deKoven  of  Racine,  who 
maintained  the  fact  of  the  Real  Presence,  but  would  J 

• •■••/♦>  i  wf'l  \  ,   ^        0  cJC+^l*/ 


not  define  the  mode.  It  was  thought  by  many  that 
Dr.  deKoven  gained  the  victory  in  the  controversy; 
and  although  later  he  was  denied  a  Bishopric,  in 
1874  he  again  defended  this  vital  doctrine  in  the 
face  of  the  General  Convention,  and  won  forever  the 
right  of  our  clergy  to  teach  it  unflinchingly. 

The  Prayer  Book  really  teaches  the  doctrines  of 
the  Catholic  Faith.  The  old  time  low  churchman 
and  the  modern  broad  churchman  alike  have  tried 
to  get  rid  of  them,  and  to  change  the  Prayer  book 
so  as  to  eliminate  its  Catholic  character.  Seeking 
fatuity,  Dr.  Cummins  and  others  left  the  Church 
in  1874,  to  found  the  "Reformed  Episcopal  Church," 
which  is  now  dying  a  natural  death. 

The  renewed  teachings  of  the  doctrines  of  the 
Church  resulted,  naturally,  in  a  development  of 
ceremonial  in  the  public  services.  The  science  of 
Ritual  came  to  be  more  generally  studied  and  its 
principles  carried  out  in  practice.  The  unfortunate 
relation  of  Church  and  State  in  England  made  many 
of  the  clergy  amenable  to  the  Civil  Law,  and  many 
a  priest  was  not  only  deprived  of  his  benefice,  but 
was  sent  to  jail.  Archdeacon  Denison  of  Taunton 
was  condemned  in  1856,  after  a  trial  lasting  three 
months.  The  Rev.  Arthur  Tooth  of  St.  James, 
Hatcham,  the  Rev.  R.  W.  Enraght  of  Bordesley, 
the  Rev.  Sidney  Fairthorne  Green  of  St.  John's, 
Miles  Platting,  and  the  Rev.  James  Bell-Cox,  Vicar 
of  St.  Margaret's,  Liverpool,  were  all  imprisoned. 
These  cruel  acts  taught  the  English  nation  and  the 
English  Church  a  lesson,  "sacrifice  alone  is  fruit- 
ful." The  so-called  Ritualistic  Movement  has 
made  steady  progress.  Opposition  has  been  a 
fructifying  force.  A  canon  passed  by  our  Church 
essaying  to  prevent  certain  ritual  acts,  was  not 
worth  the  paper  it  was  written  on,  and  only  a  few 
years  ago,  in  1903,  was  expunged  from  our  Code  as 
futile  and  unconstitutional.  It  was  unconstitutional 
because  the  Church's  Prayer  Book  and  the  Church's 
worship  cannot  be  regulated  by  Canon.     Neither 


9 


u  years 
lurches 
le  Holy 
nonths, 
•served, 
of  holi-     sf 


can  these  things  be  regulated  by  Pastoral  Letters, 
which  can  never  have  the  force  of  liturgical  enact- 
mets. 

We  think  of  the  Church  as  it  was  80-50-30  years 
ago.  We  think  of  the  old  days  when  our  churches 
were  closed  from  Sunday  to  Sunday,  when  the  Holy 
Communion  was  celebrated  every  three  months 
when  Holy  Days  passed  year  after  year  unobserved 
and  when  there  was  nothing  of  the  beauty  of  holi 
ness  to  be  seen,  and  we  hear  the  words  of  the 
Prophet,  "can  these  dry  bones  live?" 

And  then  we  look  at  the  Church  today,  at  the 
wonderful  revival  of  the  missionary  spirit,  at  our 
open  churches,  at  the  unconscious  leveling  of  nearly 
all  public  services  with  an  increase  of  liturgical, 
ceremonial,  ritualistic  development  of  decent  order, 
and  we  find  our  answer.  We  look  about  us  and  we 
praise  God  for  the  revival  of  the  Religious  Life  in 
our  Church,  for  the  Orders  of  men  and  women  who 
are  living  a  dedicated  life  in  convents,  and  com- 
munity houses.  We  picture  the  churches  we  at- 
tended in  our  childhood  and  then  right  here  in 
Asheville  we  find  ourselves  in  a  chapel  like  St. 
Mary's,  and  participating  in  a  service,  modest  and 
unfinished  as  it  is,  and  yet,  such  as  it  is,  one  that 
three  years  ago  would  have  been  thought  an  im- 
possibility, and  we  say,  Thanks  be  to  God! 

And  all  this — what  is  it  for?  That  we  may 
better  sanctify  the  Lord  God  in  our  hearts.  That 
we  may  in  all  things  give  God  the  glory.  That  we 
may  be  better  men  and  better  women,  loving,  hos- 
pitable, kind,  courteous,  compassionate,  forgiving, 
without  malice  or  hatred  in  our  hearts;  generous — 
yes,  lavish  in  our  generosity,  for  what  can  we  give 
to  Him  who  has  given  us  so  much?  This  is  our  ideal 
for  St.  Mary's — a  congregation  of  God's  people. 
A  church  with  open  doors  and  free  seats  for  all;  a 
church  of  zealous  worshippers,  of  charitable  and 
serviceable  men  and  women;  one  that  takes  care  of 
its  children  and  never  neglects  its  poor — any  poor 


rman;  whose  people  shall  be  much  more  occupied  in  J 
looking  out  for  their  own  souls  than  in  attacking  the  _/ 
faith  of  their  neighbors.  A  church  which  shall  com- 
"  bine  in  its  mode  of  worship  two  qualities — taste  and 
refinement  which  the  educated  require,  just  as  much 
in  their  churches  as  elsewhere,  and  the  air  of  state- 
liness,  almost  of  pomp,  which  shall  impress  the  com- 
mon worshiper,  and  is  not  without  its  effect  even 
upon  those  who  think  they  hold  outward  form  as 
of  little  value. 

Our  work  has  only  just  begun.  Pray  for  holy 
wisdom.  Pray  for  patience.  Pray  for  zeal.  Pray 
for  the  spirit  of  sacrifice.  If  we  are  true  to  Cath- 
olic principles  we  have  nothing  to  fear.  If  we  are 
hedged  with  thorns,  it  is  that  we  may  better  find 
and  better  love  the  Divine  Lover  of  souls.  And  if 
days  of  trial  come  upon  us,  and  the  Church  has  yet 
to  pass  through  affliction,  let  us  remember  the 
glorious  words;  "I  will  allure  her  and  bring  her  into 
the  wilderness  and  will  speak  comfortably  to  her. 
I  will  give  her  vineyards  from  thence,  and  a  valley 
of  Achor  for  a  door  of  hope;  and  she  shall  sing  there 
as  in  the  days  of  her  youth."  Sing  what?  The 
glorious  love  song  of  the  Bridegroom  and  the  Bride : 
God  will  say — "My  people"  and  we  shall  say  "My 
God." 

"O  pray  for  the  peace  of  Jerusalem:  they  shall 
prosper  that  love  thee!" 


11 


INLAND  37765 


".yr 


Makers 
Syracuse,  N.  Y. 

MT.  JAN  21,  1M8 


UNIVERSITY  OF  N.C.  AT  CHAPEL  HILL 


00033957923 

FOR  USE  ONLY  IN 
THE  NORTH  CAROLINA  COLLECTION 


Form  No.  A-368,  Rev.  8/95 


